Fiji Labour Party calling for more transparency from regime

The Fiji Labour Party says the regime is showing it has something to hide by continually refusing to disclose government financial statements and the salaries being paid to its leaders.

The Labour leader, Mahendra Chaudhry, says he is using today's UN Anti Corruption Day to highlight that corruption is at its highest now, compared with other administrations.

Mr Chaudhry says government financial statements have not been made public in the past five years.

He says the regime will not reveal its leaders' salaries, which he says could be in excess of 700,000 US dollars a year.

"There is not enough information concerning how the government spends the money. The accounts are not published, nor are the auditor general's reports published. Because they have something to hide. If they're clean, they'll disclose that. And of course the taxpayer is entitled to know what the people who are running the country are getting, because they're the ones who are paying."

Mahendra Chaudhry.

In January, the attorney general, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum said he and the interim prime minister were not officials of a political party and therefore not obliged to divulge their pay.

In April, he said he would disclose his pay in July, and in July, he said their pay would be made public after the constitution was finalised.